Ragnar Kjartansson

Wide-reaching and epic yet also tragicomic and with a grounded perspective: that is Ragnar Kjartansson’s oeuvre in a nutshell. With extensive video installations, operas and musical compositions in addition to paintings, drawings and graphic art, the artist occupies an unusual position within contemporary art. He intentionally blurs the boundaries between these media, approaching his paintings like performances, see Die Nacht der Hochzeit, his films like paintings and his performances like sculptures.

To that end, repetition and time are important instruments. He has arranged for musicians to play the same song for hours, he has spent days painting the same portrait, he records the same short film with his mother every five years (see Me and My Mother) and he has commissioned a 12-hour performance that repeats the last three minutes of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, over and over (see Bliss). This repetition gradually alters the meaning: what began as an action becomes an experience.

Kjartansson’s work centres on emotion rather than narrative. He strives to evoke an emotional state that defies easy identification: is it melancholy, or a response to beauty, or something in between? Love, masculinity and transience are recurring themes as well. The artist explores how people cope with loss and loneliness, but never in a heavy-handed way. Irony and humour are as much in evidence as gravity and nostalgia. This combination of sincerity and self-deprecation is typical of his work.

Kjartansson draws from a broad cultural heritage: literature, cinema, theatre and pop music, see: Empty Buckets I-IV. He includes references to the Scandinavian melancholy of Edvard Munch, but also to ABBA. His work is simultaneously highbrow and accessible, festive and mournful. Friends and family often play a role in his projects, lending a personal touch to his work. The viewer is invited to stay awhile, to listen and to feel. It’s not about the concept, but the experience.